Carl Bialik (previously known as The Numbers Guy) at 538 argues that Manchester United was exceptionally lucky in Alex Ferguson’s last season, and that David Moyes just kept steady a downward trend. Bialik’s point is that looking at finer measures of performance than simply points, such as the share of shots taken and the goal differential, United should not have done as well as ghey did last year, so Moyes should not be blamed for the (apparent) decline this year. There is a nice graph of the development of United’s share of shots taken the last 12 years in the post showing this clearly.